Clean up

Dinner turned out just fine, thanks for asking. Red beans and rice. We even have enough left over for lunches, and I have a feeling it will taste just as good cold.

After we finished eating, I made polenta for the first time ever. (It's the base for tomorrow's dinner.) Found out that polenta is good for the cleanliness of my kitchen. It takes a good half hour to cook, and I wanted to keep an eye on it, since I was afraid it would scorch. But it didn't really occupy much of my time. So while I was 'watching' the polenta I managed to get the dishwasher unloaded and then reloaded with the dishes from dinner, plus washed all my pans and knives, etc. from tonight.

I know, I know, it's sad that at thirty-two I still consider cleaning up after myself an accomplishment, but what can I say?

Tomorrow we'll be having Italian style polenta, meaning it ends up more like cornbread than porridge. To make it, you take a little cornmeal and cook it in a fair amount of water. After it soaks up all of the water, you proceed to cook a good bit of that water right back out of it. It's a funny thing. Why not start with less water and just be done with the whole thing that much sooner? I know there are reasons, so I just have to trust the process, even if it seems a bit silly. For a half hour, it's fairly easy.

But the same thing comes up in my own life. I keep thinking there should be a shortcut, that things shouldn't take so long. Gotta learn to let go and trust the process.

Or maybe the answer is just to distract myself by cleaning the kitchen.